Why We Should All Care About Southwest Flying to Hawaii

As of yesterday, Southwest Airlines has received FAA approval to start flying between the U.S. mainland and the Hawaiian Islands. The Dallas-based, low-cost airline notes that the on-sale date and details of airfares are expected "in the coming days."

If you've been following Southwest's progress, this might feel like a long time coming. The airline has been ready to launch flights for a few months, as Traveler'sMeredith Carey reported, "with space already set up in Hawaiian airports" and plans to fly its 737s to Honolulu, Maui, and Kona from four California cities: Oakland, San Diego, Sacramento, and San Jose. And then came FAA delays, brought on by the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Although the airfares and routes haven’t been announced, the start of Southwest flights to Hawaii is imminent, and locals as well as industry players are bracing for fresh waves of tourists to the Aloha state.

Will these flights change Hawaii tourism?

Despite the Big Island’s Kilauea volcano spewing lava in 2018, tourism to Hawaii continues to trend upward. The state welcomed 845,072 visitors, who spent approximately $1.4 billion in August 2018 alone, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority. The promise of swaying palm trees and freshly mixed Mai Tais in a place where your cell phone isn’t on international roaming is a major attraction, but is the state ready for even more visitors?

Michael J. Pye, general manager of the Fairmont Kea Lani on Maui, is looking forward to the new flights for more reasons than just selling rooms, he says. Southwest's “added airlift” supports the Hawaii tourism industry “multiple layers deep,” from creating more jobs to supporting local businesses looking to showcase Hawaiian culture to first-time visitors. Pye stresses the travel industry’s role in being responsible hosts, too: “It becomes our kuleana [privilege/responsibility] to educate and enrich [guests] about the deeply rooted Hawaiian culture. We will look for opportunities to collaborate with Southwest to ensure the environmental footprint of these new visitors is minimized, from their awareness of protecting our natural resources (reef and marine animal protection) to supporting green operations and sustainable practices,” he says.

Hawaii residents will also naturally benefit from more flight options to and from the islands. Lace Reyes, a born-and-bred Moloka’i local who frequently takes a Mokulele Airlines hopper to Maui to catch mainland-bound flights, says she's optimistic about the new Southwest service: “A lot of us have family who moved to the mainland for work or the stability they couldn’t find here, so if there’s an airline that allows us to visit them more affordably, I’m sure a lot of us kama’āina [resident of the islands] will make use of it.” Reyes also sees the potential these flights may have for her island: “I think a lot of tourists would take the opportunity to explore more of the Hawaiian islands, like Moloka’i, if they can save money on the airfare over.”

Are flights to Hawaii about to get much cheaper?

Southwest can’t start selling tickets until it receives full approval from the FAA for the Hawaii routes. Since that hasn’t happened yet, we asked Matthew Ma, co-founder of the popular airfare sale website The Flight Deal, how low he thinks they’ll go. “At the moment, there been a lot of deals from the West Coast to Hawaii for about $300 and it isn't going to go much lower than that,” says Ma. “The cost of operating to Hawaii is slightly higher than operating within the continental U.S. due to the costs of maintaining an ETOPS [Extended-range Twin-engine Operation Performance Standards, a certification that means an aircraft has the ability and requirements to perform extended over-water flights] fleet, so we are excited that fares around $300 will be more frequent, but we don't think the floor is much lower than that.”

That said, $200 round-trips to the islands have happened, and Southwest will face additional competition when Hawaiian Airlines introduces basic economy tickets later this year. And one recent analysis by Morgan Stanley suggests flights to Hawaii across all airlines will drop as much as 30 percent. once Southwest enters the game.

What does Southwest have to offer?

Southwest may be entering an already crowded field, but if low fares aren’t enough, the airline offers two decisive advantages: the “Companion Pass” and their “bags fly free” policy. The Companion Pass is essentially a "buy one, get one flight for just $5.60 in taxes and fees" pass for your partner, kid, or travel BFF that lasts for an entire year, earned through serious Southwest loyalty of flying 100 qualifying one-way trips or racking up 110,000 qualifying points in a single year. Signing up for a Southwest credit card and meeting a spend threshold also leads to a Companion Pass. Assuming the airline doesn’t impose any special restrictions on the Hawaii routes for the pass, the promise of two-for-one flights to Hawaii is a potential game-changer. The “bags fly free” policy is similarly unique and pretty self-explanatory: There are no fees on your first two checked bags within weight and size limits, whereas other airlines charge from $30 upwards for each checked bag. This equals major savings for a family heading to Hawaii with all of their snorkel gear, sandals, and flowered shirts.

Routes from the mainland to Hawaii were traditionally the domain of the “majors,” full-service carriers like American, Delta, United, and Hawaiian whose airfares helped mold Hawaii’s jet-age reputation as a high-end (and high-priced) destination. Slowly but surely, competition entered the market and put downward pressure on those ticket prices. Alaska Airlines, whose iconic Eskimo tails are now ubiquitous at Hawaii’s major airports, began flights to the Aloha state only as recently as 2007. And, when Virgin America (RIP) flew its first flights from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Hawaii in late 2015, it gave loyal fliers their most requested destination at the same time as advertising low, $199 one-ways to the islands, a price previously unheard of for Hawaii flights. A few years of such affordable airfares has worked to change the public perception of Hawaii. No longer is it solidly a blow-the-budget, special occasion destination. Hopping over to the islands on a deal for a spontaneous long weekend is a thing, and Southwest is arriving at the perfect time.